


sun and moon

by carnivorousBelvedere



Series: sun and moon/alpha and omega [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Human/Troll Society (Homestuck), Courting Rituals, Growing Up, M/M, Mating Bites, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega!Karkat, alpha!dave - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-03-29 15:36:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19022845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carnivorousBelvedere/pseuds/carnivorousBelvedere
Summary: From the very first moment you meet him, Dave Strider is like a hot knife being shoved under your skin. Too sharp, too warm, too much.The story of how Dave and Karkat grew up together, grew apart, and found each other again...But mostly about how Dave excessively courted Karkat when he did find him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is the story of how _stake your claim_ Dave and Karkat met but it's not necessary to have read it. That fic is just ABO porn so if you like ABO you'll probably enjoy it though ;)
> 
> I posted my first homestuck fic (it was also ABO lmao) exactly one year ago, and I've been sitting on this fic for awhile, so I thought I would post the first bit today to commemorate.

From the very first moment you meet him, Dave Strider is like a hot knife being shoved under your skin. Too sharp, too warm, too much. 

A boy wearing glasses too large for his face pushes you down onto the blacktop. “Bro says trolls shouldn’t be allowed in school.” His jacket is an obnoxious, familiar red. You shrug down the grey sleeves of your sweater and feel a bit of programmed panic before making sure you haven’t been scratched. 

You hate him instantly. 

“Go away,” Sollux yells at him and stomps his foot. This earns a forced laugh from the boy who then runs back to his dark-haired friend.

The dark-haired boy says something to him and then begins bowling towards you. It happens almost as quickly as it takes for Sollux to help you off the ground.

He comes over and puts his hand out to you. “Hi!” he says squeakily. “I’m John!” He’s lost his front teeth already. 

“I’m Karkat,” you respond gruffly but don’t shake his hand. He takes it for you and shakes it. “I like trolls! You guys are cool.” He then looks over at the boy who pushed you earlier. “Dave come say hi!” 

Dave stands a distance away from you three, his arms crossed and shaking his head. John adamantly waves for him to come over again. Dave sighs heavily and shakes his head some more but starts over to you. 

You stiffen, your back going rigid as you watch him come over. “What,” he pouts at John. 

“This is Karkat. We’re all gonna be friends!” 

From then on you start getting invited to John’s house to play. His dad is always nice to you and usually has different cakes for you to try. He’s a very domineering alpha and makes sure you’re all well-fed and sugared after school. He never questions or side-eyes your grey sweaters, which is a nice change from when you visit your troll friends houses. 

Eventually you’re at his place practically every day. 

It’s ritual now. You all tumble up the stairs into John’s house. His dad opens the door and lets you in, but draws John to the side and scents him with his wrists. He comes back smelling, well, like John, just a bit stronger. The first few times he makes a scene and hems and haws about his friends, but his father is adamant. You have to look away from the intimate moment, reminding you of the warm embrace waiting for you at home. Dave just watches them with a bored, sometimes befuddled look, and ignores you.

It gets better after some time. You talk a lot about the games you both like and shows you watch. Dave shows you his bad drawings. He becomes less pointed and grating to be around. His comments on your alienness cease. 

One day you run to the bathroom and come back while you Dave and John are watching a movie. You hear them talking. 

“Karkat isn’t so bad,” Dave admits. 

“See! I told you to stop listening to your bro!” You can hear that squeaky indignance in John’s voice that you’ve grown so fond of. 

“But Bro is always right!” Dave pouts back at him. 

You thrust forward into the room and the two owlish eyes of your human friends flash look at you. You frown and mumble a “What,” before sinking down into the couch next to John, eyes focused on the television screen. 

“Nothing! You missed a good part,” John says with a grin and catches you up on the two minutes you might have missed.

-

You go home after these boyish afternoons and let your mom sniff your neck and scent you again when you come into the house. She nuzzles against your cheek, sometimes comments that you’re growing. 

As you get older and enter middle school, these comments come with an itch at the back of your mind. It’s a tensing uncertainty for a question you know is coming but choose not to answer with each passing day. 

It’s like a dam breaking the first time one of your classmates misses school for a straight week. You hear about it in whispers, something understood that you elect not to consider, and go on with your life. 

That’s when you find yourself and your entire class going through “the talk”. You learn about heats and scent suppressants and ruts and the organs and what happens and oh god this is what your dad tried and failed to tell you that one time wasn’t it. They only talk about how it is for humans in school. You want to fist your hands and scream into them because you don’t want to think about any of this. Life is confusing enough already, just with being a troll in this human-focused society. 

Dave leans back in a chair and balances it on two legs. “I’m absolutely going to be an alpha, no doubt about it,” You’d overheard him before. “Hasn’t been a Strider who wasn’t an alpha in history.” 

What’s so special about being an alpha anyways? It just sounds like more responsibility. You’re expected to always care about everyone. Be able to ease an omega if they need you. It’s all dumb. Plus you’ve heard what they say. 

_An alpha is nothing without their omega._

“Nobody cares Dave!” You yell at him while John sniggers beside you. You don’t see his eyes but you’ve been around Dave enough to know when he’s rolling them. Stupid cocky ass. 

You wake up one morning with the feeling of a searing blade stabbed into your stomach and turned unrelentlessly. You moan for your parents who come to your side. Your omega mother quakes with understanding and you groan into the arms of your neutral scented father. 

They put soothing additives into your sopor and it manages to abate the flame some. You lean with a warm forehead onto the rim of your recuperacoon with your mother leaning against the side and running worried fingers through your hair. 

At night when you’re alone you wake up panting with your bulge twisting out. You busy your hands with your bulge, squeezing over and over and bringing yourself to razor sharp edge you can’t jump off of. In frustration you plunge two fingers into your nook and gasp out at the sensation. The relief is heavy and short-lived. Frantically you thrust into yourself with your fingers, bulge twisting about the palm and wrist of your other hand. The effect is like trying to strum one string when seven still need to be plucked. 

You sob into your hands and wish for it to go away, not wanting to understand the raging hunger inside of you. 

When the haze finally clears your parents bring you drugs you’ve walked past in the store but never paid attention to. Heat and scent suppressants, specialized for trolls. Later when you’re alone you moan into your arms and hate how much you suddenly need to think about. 

When you go back to school you start using, washing with and wearing scent suppressants. Your first day back at school Dave and John look at you with concern. You’d told them you’d gotten sick. 

Truthfully, you shrug and tell them you had your first heat. 

John claps you on the back and Dave’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. 

He’s walking with you to class when it comes up. “How are you feeling?” he asks. You look sidelong at him. He doesn’t usually ask anything like that. “I mean, are you doing alright?”

“I’m fucking fine Strider what would give you any inclination otherwise.” 

“It’s not that… I just… Ugh never mind.” He frowns, seemingly bewildered with himself. His face twists into a grimace after. 

Dave is busy one evening and so you end up doing homework at John’s place. His dad predictably had baked you an entire cake to congratulate you. You murmur thanks and take your food up to John’s bedroom. When he places his computer in front of you both on the bed and shows you an array of videos that leave you howling, you can’t help but notice the hardening line of his jaw and how he’s growing into his smile. It brings warmth to your cheeks and digestion bladder. 

It scares you. 

-

Nothing changes at the same time that everything does. As you enter high school and more and more peers are presenting, you learn all that and more about custom and things you should and shouldn’t do. When neither John or Dave presents it’s a relief, because you don’t think you could handle all that.

It’s third year of high school. Your cycle is supposed to start soon so you’ll be out of class for a few days. As such, you’ve been extra diligent with the scent suppressants. Dave pushes a plate of food to you across the table, John still hasn’t come to meet you yet. 

“Uh, what’s that,” you ask him. 

He’s as hard to read behind his glasses as ever. “You should be eating.”

“I am eating,” you say and punctuate that with another bite of grubloaf sandwich. 

“Yeah but like, I dunno, I know you’re gonna be out of class next week and all and--” 

“Hey Dave, if I wanted you to alpha me I’d fucking ask you to,” you snap at him. He shrugs reflexively and throws his hands up defensively. Stupid beta projecting ass. Dave gets especially moody if you mention the fact he hasn’t presented yet to him, so that should definitely be enough to shut him down.

John’s dad had been even more frustrating lately. Just the other night when you and John had stayed up late to study for a biology exam he cut you off of the flavored, syrupy coffee before he cut John off. 

When John finally dumps his backpack on a chair and sits next to you slow your eyes to look up at him. There’s warm flush on your cheeks that’s become ever so familiar when you’re around him. 

-

You have a crush on John. Your beta friend John. Part of you is internally screaming.  
The other half of you wants to say, so what?

It’s hard to wade through your thoughts when your heat hits, untimely and unwanted as always. You writhe in a warm bath and use toys and think of John and the knot he doesn’t have.

And fleetingly, you think about Dave. The fantasy catches you off guard- you lifting up his glasses, Dave picking you up and shoving you against a wall and kissing you, claiming you. The fantasy is replaced with another featuring John immediately after, but it’s the only one. 

You remember it after. 

Catching up on your homework after a heat is always strange. Dave, despite being a beta, is as weird as could be about it. He apparently dropped some papers off while you were out of class, which makes you feel strange when you think about it. 

Had he been in your house when you were thinking of him? It’s not bad etiquette for a beta. But it makes you feel strange, and lonely, and like you want him to touch you. 

The thought lingers long after the heat has drained out of your bones, even when you’re back in school. 

-

Eventually you get over John. He turns you down, actually. Harshly. He tells you he only likes girl betas, which you still doubt, but you let it go. Your friend group gets really awkward for awhile. 

-

You and John become friends again and just pretend like nothing happened. It’s easier for everyone involved. 

-

You graduate high school and go to college to study literature. Dave goes off elsewhere to study film at a small school. John ends up in engineering at a pretty good school. 

You all fall out of contact. Through the social media grapevine you find out Dave presented as an alpha, a late bloomer. 

You don’t have it in you to awkwardly reach out and congratulate him. 

-

Dave Strider’s first movie blows up. It’s massively popular. You kind of hate it. 

You wish you were still friends with him so you could talk about it, but you’ll probably never see him again. Thoughts about your old friends get entirely lost in the shuffle of your daily life. 

You end up writing your first book. It’s a mildly successful romance, but it’s enough to pay the bills for now. 

Your second one gets even more popular. Huh, maybe you will make it at this novelist thing. 

Somehow, despite your mutant-blood troll omega status, you made it in this world. 

-

Kanaya asks you, very very nicely, to go and grab some specialty products from the local Troll Foods near to where the party is going to be downtown. You moan and groan about how it’s late and they’re closing soon and that nobody’s going to care about specialty oranges at the awards after-party but you give in and go anyways like you knew you always would. 

You get in and peruse the produce aisles for the item she really wanted, and toss it into a basket when you get it. 

Across the store you can hear a small commotion. A stirring of people. You furrow your eyebrows as somebody runs over and stage whispers to their friend, “Oh my god, it’s that famous director! He’s here!” They pull them in the direction of the noise and you’re left pondering your fruit options. 

Oh yeah, you have to get that one juice bottle too. 

You make your way over to the juice area at the back of the store when you smell it before you see it.

The air, that should smell rather sterile and benign, smells like alpha, but not in a good way. It smells like… depressed alpha. 

Someone needs to take this asshole home and take care of them, alpha’s shouldn’t be wandering around smelling like that. It’s kind of pathetic. 

You don’t notice at first when it happens but someone shows up next to you as you open the juice door and search for the type that was requested. 

The smell gets stronger, until there’s someone standing next to you, opening the adjacent clear door to the juice. 

You close it and turn your head to snap at the asshole next to you but are shut up by pure shock.

It’s a man standing in a red silky bathrobe clearly wearing boxers under, and getting around with slippers. 

He smells pathetically sad.

You also know who he is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry baby  
> You were the [sun and moon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll5ykbAumD4) to me  
> I'll never get over you, you'll never get over me


	2. Chapter 2

He’s wearing sunglasses, but you recognize him immediately. 

“ _Dave_?” You say. 

He gapes at you. 

“Dave Strider?” You try again. 

He keeps staring, swaying slightly where he stands.

The crowd of people surrounding peers at him, you can see phones flashing in the back. 

Your eyes trail to the man’s hand, where a handle of very fancy whiskey is hanging, and you realize distantly that he’s probably trying to buy orange juice to go along with said whiskey. You’d think someone so famous would be able to pay someone to buy groceries for him. 

You shift uncomfortably and then he surges forward. “K-Karkat?” He asks, after what feels like a million seconds later.

“Yeah, fucking obviously,” you snap. It would be more fitting for him to say that, because he is obviously the rather famous director Dave Strider, your childhood friend that you lost contact with. 

He’s still staring at you from under those shades. The people in the background hesitate. You offer them a glance and purse your lips at the cameras uncomfortably before making up your mind, dropping your basket of goods on the floor. 

Dave Strider, your old friend, smells like drunk and depressed alpha and you need to do something about it. 

You take a hold of his wrist and start leading him out of the market, away from the bright fluorescent lighting. He’s still staring at you like he can’t believe you’re real as you drag him out of the building. You really do think it should be flipped. Before you exit you remove the whiskey handle from his hand and set it aside. 

“God, you smell absolutely pitiful, let’s get you the fuck out of here,” you mutter as you drag him out of the automatic sliding doors. “How did you get here?” 

“What?” He asks dumbly.

“I said, how did you get here? Uber? Car? Where the fuck do you even live I need to get you home.” 

“I uh, shit….” he says. What is it with him? Is he actually completely drunk off his ass? 

“Fine, I’ll just take you to my place.” Your hotel room is going to smell but Dave’s place would probably be worse.

Wait. Dave is really fucking famous, he has a mansion in the hills, right?

How could you have forgotten that detail? 

You send a quick text to Kanaya, barely describing the situation. 

‘RAN INTO AN OLD FRIEND AT THE MARKET. NOT SURE WHEN ‘ILL BE BACK.’

God, she is going to have some serious questions later. 

You then flip open the app and order an Uber that would take you both back to your hotel. Hopefully there won’t be too much traffic going back that way, away from the small awards show you were supposed to be attending. 

Not like you really wanted to be there anyways. 

Kanaya is going to be so mad the suit she made for you won’t get in any photos, though, but you were always far from the main attraction. 

You were just a writer, anyways. 

 

You have to snap at the thankfully beta driver to mind their own business halfway through the drive when they start giving curious glances at Dave in the rear view mirror. He’s just sitting there, staring at you.

At your hotel you push him through the lobby as fast as he can possibly move. 

He’s drunk, or faded, or some mix of the two, and hopefully not anything else. He reeks of alcohol and sadness, and it’s driving your omega side insane. Like you need to pull him into a den and hold him until he calms down or feels better. 

Finally you get to your room. You swipe your card key and pull Dave in before steeling yourself for what is about to happen. You set your shoulders and face him.

“Dave, you’re going to go into that bathroom, take off your clothes, and take a goddamn shower. And then you’re gonna drink a ton of water _and sober the fuck up_. Do you understand?” 

Omegas could command alphas to a certain degree, although they aren’t so much commands as much as very strong suggestions, but it’s almost exclusively used in relationships. Not that this was unprecedented, but it was unconventional. 

Actually, it was very improper. It really, really was not supposed to be used outside of relationships. To do so would be social taboo. But Dave hadn’t really been playing fair either, not with how he’d been going around smelling. 

You have just caught a famous director in the midst of what appeared to be a bender and ran with him from the scene, definitely not an everyday situation, though. Certainly extenuating circumstances, all social protocol be damned. 

Dave is still staring at you like you’re not real. 

You point to the bathroom. “Go to the bathroom. _Shower_.” 

Dave turns and goes immediately, his expression unchanging. You listen for the sounds of shed clothes and only exhale in relief when you hear the shower go on definitively. 

You need to find Dave a change, certainly clothes that aren’t a bathrobe. You should have some sweatpants around that would fit the… alpha. 

_Take care of your friend first, and then continue on with ignoring your biological imperative later, dumbass._

Dave had really grown a lot since Karkat had seen him in person. 

You can do that. You are at least able to find a loose pair of pants and a baggy sweatshirt, and thank your past self for the foresight. You lay the pieces of clothes on the bed facing the bathroom and then dig up the room service menu. 

You end up ordering a grilled chicken quesadilla which seems the least palate offensive offering, and then wait. 

Dave finally emerges from the steamy bathroom, a towel around his waist and shades on his face still. 

Wow. He really did hit his alpha growth spurt late. You try to ignore how much you’re really admiring his broad shoulders, and how safe you would feel caged between his arms. You blink to take that in once before remembering what you were really doing here. You point at the clothes and he doesn’t seem to follow, so you sigh and step over to pick them up before handling the bundle right to Dave, who is still kind of looking like a mess. A very attractive mess, but a mess nonetheless.

You inject the same command into your voice. “ _Put this on and go drink some water._ ” Dave’s eyebrows furrow for half a second but he takes the clothes and steps backwards into the bathroom.

When he finally emerges it’s just as you are is intercepting the room service. You opt to carry it inside yourself, thanking the waiter and closing the door before carrying it to the bed. You notice he looks a little bit better, and he’s at least clothed now. 

“Here. I got you some food. You look like you need some.”

Dave opens his mouth to speak but you cut him off. “ _Sit down and eat_.” 

Dave sits on the bed and you lift the lid off the food.

He sighs and tears a piece of quesadilla.

“Fuck I love room service,” he mumbles, and you actually find yourself laughing with relief that he sounds sober. You take a corner for yourself, actually finding all this has made you a bit hungry. 

You eat in silence and you’re not sure if he’s watching you behind his shades. You try not to stare at him, pointedly looking down at the plate between you on the bed. 

“So you’re helping me,” he finally says. 

“What? Yeah, of course—“

“Why.” 

You pause, taken by surprise. 

“Why are you doing this for me,” he says a little bit louder.

“I uh… Dave we used to be friends. I get it you’re a famous director now and all and maybe you don’t remember the little people but I wasn’t just gonna… watch that shitshow that go down and not do anything about it. Do you even remember what you did?”

Dave groans, putting his slice down so he can rub at his eyes under his shades. “Sort of. I remember going to get uh. Groceries. God, my publicist is going to kill me…”

“Jesus, welcome back to planet earth. Your trip to blackout city included standing half naked in the juice section at the downtown Troll Foods, halfway done with buying the ingredients for the fanciest orange juice and whiskey in town. Which is two ingredients, by the way.” 

Dave busts out laughing. “No way,” he says, after his laughter calms down. “Fuck, I must have looked pathetic.”

“I could smell how pathetic several aisles away.”

“Ooof. Ouch dude.”

“Just thought you would want to know.” 

Dave laughs at that. You laugh too, until it slowly leaks out and you are both just sitting there looking at each other. 

You don’t even know how long it’s been since you’ve seen each other. Six years, maybe? And there you are, ribbing just like you used to back in school. 

Maybe with a bit more physical admiration of him than before, though. 

“I…. I’m really happy to see you again,” Dave says after a long moment, looking at you. “And I’m sorry we lost contact.”

You shrug. “Hey that stuff goes both ways. It’s fine. You got busy. I got busy.”

“Right…” Dave says, biting his lip. “Congrats on your book,” he says a little loudly, appearing to glare daggers into the salsa, even though you still can’t see his eyes. 

“I… what.”

“Your book. You just published another one, right.” 

“I… yeah. I did.”

“Why do you look so surprised.”

“I don’t know. I would have thought you would have forgotten about me. Or never heard about it. You have... Bigger fish to fry.” 

Dave shakes his head. “You were never little people... Plus apparently my biggest fish to fry right now is buying whiskey and orange juice to bring home and get even more wasted by myself.”

You laugh despite yourself. There’s so much behind that statement that you know will make you feel heavy when you think about it later. “I don’t think you’re allowed to joke about that just yet.” 

The sadness ghosting Dave’s face since you first saw him is still there. Yes, he’s in better shape than when you found him, but he still looks so goddamn sad. You wish you could find out why and make it better. 

That’s the omega in you talking, wanting to take care of an alpha and have them take care of you in return.

“Hey Dave,” you say after a few moments of him silently eating again. You feel like you might be getting whiffs of that sadness off of him again, but you might just be making it up. 

“Sup.”

“Why… were you at Troll Foods drunk.” You shift your eyes up to him and watch him freeze. 

“Well the proper assumption here would be that I was drinking before that.” He shoves more food in his mouth and you sigh.

“Not that. You know what I mean.”

He avoids your gaze, even with his sunglasses. “Listen dude this isn’t necessarily my finest hour here, cut me some slack.” 

You sigh, still wanting to know more, still feeling that urge to take him into your arms until it’s all better, but you drop the subject. 

“You were commanding me,” he says, and you can’t immediately tell if he’s upset or teasing or what. 

Now it’s your turn to freeze. “What else was I going to do? You were a rolling sad sack of shit, I had to do something to sober you up!” All that makes you think of is the media shitstorm that would hit if they found out about this whole situation. 

He puts his hands up defensively. “I’m not upset I’m just saying!”

You feel your cheeks burning furiously. Of all the things he had to remember, it had to be that. It really wasn’t cool of you to do that. 

“Sorry,” you mutter, looking uncomfortably away. 

“It’s…. It’s fine, really. I mean, not like I have a mate waiting at home who would flip their shit if they found out. Man can you even imagine…” 

“This probably wouldn’t have happened if you had a mate,” you growl.

Dave pauses, and you think he might be looking at you curiously. “You’re right. It wouldn’t have,” he says thoughtfully. “What were you doing at Troll Foods? You seem pretty done up for just a regular grocery run.” 

You realize you’re still wearing the suit you were supposed to wear to the party, though you have taken the jacket off. You sigh. “I was supposed to go to some party as moral support for my friend. She’s a designer, she made this whole getup actually.”

“Oh, the thing the Grammy museum does, right?”

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“I think I was supposed to make an appearance,” Dave says, laughing dryly. His head then stills and you wonder if you can feel his eyes roaming your body or if you’re just making it up, but you do see him swallow thickly before speaking. “You look really good,” he says, so softly, and jolts suddenly. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m being an asshole. I don’t even know if you have a mate or anything. I shouldn’t have dragged you into my shit.” 

You roll your eyes. “I don’t have one, for the record. And even if I did it wouldn’t matter... I’d still help you.”

Dave peers at you. “If I was your mate I don’t think I’d like that very much.”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, hot omega, alone in an empty hotel room with an unmated drunk alpha.” He shrugs. “Doesn’t exactly give the most innocent impression.”

You try hard to stop the blushing, mutant red rushing to your cheeks and making them warm. “Shut the fuck up, it’s no one’s goddamn business.” You should also snap at him for the possessive pheromones filling the air, this is fucked up on so many levels it’s embarrassing. You don’t have it in you to tell him off, and even worse you think you don’t actually mind. You’re so pathetically single, that’s why. 

Dave smiles wryly. It reminds you of how he used to be, and the nostalgia of it feels like a balm you didn’t know you needed. 

“I thought you were courting Maxine Fletcher?” You say suddenly. You don’t know where it came from and you want to kick yourself.

Dave chokes. “Her?! Oh fuck no. Don’t tell me you actually pay attention to that shit in the tabloids.”

“Of course I don’t read that three day old steaming garbagel! It’s just hard to ignore those stupid magazines at the store sometimes...”

He laughs a little nervously. “Well, okay, uh, no, big no. I mean like she’s hot but oh god, that is not my brand of high maintenance omega. So yeah I’m not uh. Courting anyone… I... Haven’t wanted to.”

You won’t push the topic but you can’t deny you’re a little curious. Why wouldn’t he have wanted to? Surely he’d have met someone worth his interest by now? Or was he too focused on work? You could respect that. 

“So you don’t have a mate?” He asks after a few more quiet moments, and again you have no way of discerning what the meaning behind that statement is. 

“Not even a little bit. I already told you, I don’t have one, and don’t rub it in. No one will have me because I’m a mutant fuck up. It’s lucky enough that I even have friends.”

“Alright, besides that statement being completely fucking untrue, we were friends once.”

“We aren’t anymore,” you point out. 

“We could be again.” He sounds so painfully sincere. 

You stop and stare at him. You? Hanging around with director Dave Strider? 

Even now this whole situation feels so out of place from the director you’d heard about from the tabloids. He’s so glitzy and ostentatious and throws crazy parties and gives no fucks, but here he is, having a normal conversation with you. 

Mostly normal. Everything you’ve talked about has honestly made you nonstop blush. You hate your omega physiology sometimes, making you want to roll over and present your neck to any decently respectable alpha that walks by. It’s ridiculous. You’ve really been reading too much into this whole interaction, and you know you’re going to go home and read into it even more. 

But you and Dave used to be good friends and he seems so much like the friend you used to have. You don’t think you can say no, so you don’t. 

“Uh, alright. I’m not a big party person though.”

He smiles again, but it’s a sad one. “I’m not either.”

You look at him incredulously. “But you--”

“Have a lot of parties? I know. It’s not like I actually go to them. Just supposed to keep up appearances. I have a reputation to uphold, you know.” He looks away again. “I’m just kind of tired of it, I guess.” 

You remember what he’d said about making an appearance at the party you were supposed to go to but deciding not to. You guess the call of his liquor at home must have been stronger, which still doesn’t make you feel better. 

“Well, I would have seen you if you’d gone earlier.”

Dave smiles at you but it’s still so _sad_. “You’re right. But here we are.” He turns and faces you, appearing very serious now. “I owe you, Karkat. You… You saved me. I promise I will make it up to you.”

You shake your head. “Hey, don’t worry about it. It’s uh. It’s something a friend would do.”

You can feel his eyes on you and you don’t know what to make of that. None of this interaction makes any sense. You can still barely believe this guy used to be one of your best friends. It feels like it was so long ago. 

Dave smiles at you. “Yeah, I guess it was.”

-

You realize Dave Strider doesn’t understand the meaning of the word “friend” the next week when he sends a custom order of flown-in Belgian chocolates, Alternian crunchpastries and a massive arrangement of the freshest flowers you’ve ever seen. 

You open your door to see the deliveryperson. 

“Who the fuck is this from?” You ask, gesturing at the people walking the eight foot flower bouquet to your doorstep.

You are handed a package with an envelope on top. You notice them also bringing in a suit bag. With a confused look you tear the envelope open, absolutely lost as to who has sent you this. The letter is written in gold with the shittiest penmanship you’ve ever seen.

_Hey Karkat,_

_I’m trying to make good on the whole friends thing we talked about. I’d like to host you for a dinner on my yacht this Friday at 6._

_I’ll have someone pick you up at 5:30._

- _Dave Strider_

_P.S. I’m excited to see you again._


End file.
